Coffee on Purpose

Cool.

Thanks.

And just like that, ladies and gentlemen, we did it once again. We've safely arrived, crossing the ether digitally, and we're here for Coffee on Purpose. Welcome to Coffee on Purpose, caffeinated conversations with inspiring difference makers to help you fly higher in the difference only you can make. Today we're going to talk with Isaac about passion. I'm your host, Scott Perry, author of Onward!, head coach of Akimbo Workshops, and chief difference maker at Creative on Purpose. If you're ready to make a living by making a difference, grab some insight and inspiration at creativeonpurpose.com. Let's meet today's guest, Isaac Tucker. Welcome to the broadcast. Tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where can people go to connect with and learn more about you and the difference you're making.

Awesome, Scott. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Um, yeah, uh, my name is Isaac Tucker. I live in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. I work for Catapult Engineering. I've been with Catapult Engineering here for 10 years now, actually, uh, in 2 days. I started on my birthday 10 years ago. Um, so, uh, you could visit catapultengineering.com to check out pretty much all of our, all of our work. Um, you could follow me on Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn. Follow me there, I post random stuff. Um, and, uh, I also have, yeah, a lot of side hustles and a lot of, uh, other things that we can talk about here, but, um Yeah, I'm really into solving problems. That's kind of, that's kind of the big thing. So you throw a problem at us, we'll try and solve it for you.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, that's actually at the heart of the definition that we use for creativity at Creative On Purpose is creativity is the human ability to work together to solve interesting problems and make meaningful change happen. So I love that that's what you're about. And so Catapult Engineering, has been a huge success. And my understanding is, so just to provide the viewers with a little context, uh, Dillsburg, Pennsylvania is probably not one of those burgs that you are really familiar with. I am, yes, because I have been attending the Dillsburg Farmers Fair every year forever since I was a kid because my aunt and uncle live in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. And so we go there for the Farmers Fair, uh, occasionally for the dill pickle drop on New Year's Eve. Yep. Um, I run into my, uh, namesake Scott Perry every year at the parade, and we shake hands and try to decide who's on top of the Google search. So I know a lot about Dillsburg and love what you have done there, which is you've created this makerspace right in the heart of downtown. And when I first saw this 3 or— I don't know how many years ago it was— 3, 4 years ago. Yeah, I was blown away by what you had built. So tell us a little bit about the MakerSpace.

Yeah, um, so real quick, Catapult Engineering, we are software engineers that have built software to solve problems in the utility space. So anybody that wants to attach a fiber optic cable to a pole, we've written software to help people do that whole process. It's a, it's a whole thing. Has a lot of, a lot of complexity, has a lot of math and safety issues as well. So it kind of combines a lot of real, real-world problems with a lot of engineering issues. So out of that, as we were growing our company, as we're growing our software platform, we sort of had our own problem living in Dillsburg where we wanted to attract talent and we wanted to retain the talent that did exist here. And said, hey, you don't have to go off to MIT, you don't have to go off to Silicon Valley, you can stay right here, live somewhat of a normal, slower-paced life, and still get to work for a tech company that has fun. And we're just kind of kicking around different ideas as to how to do that. And we're like, ugh, career fairs are a drag, you know, spending money trying to look cool and stuff at colleges was just like not really our thing. And so, you know, we kind of looked at the Venn diagram of what our people were interested in, some of the things that we wanted to do for years but just didn't really— we just didn't— couldn't pull the trigger on them. You know, in our old office, we sort of had this, this back room full of junk that we would, you know, we called it our lab. And occasionally we'd go back there and fix something. And one of our guys had a 3D printer and we had some other gadgets and stuff back there. And occasionally we'd go back there, but it just— it wasn't— it wasn't being utilized. But we thought about that. We said, hey, what, you know, what, what are people interested in, uh, that are a high-performance caliber that we'd want to get into our company? Um, and makerspaces really were one of those things that were like, we just want our own makerspace for ourselves. But it would be also one of those things that could attract people and, and, and kind of give, um, give our folks an edge. And we didn't really know exactly what we were doing, but simultaneously a friend of ours said, you know, they're on the library board. They said, hey, we're about to sell our library building, um, and I think you guys would be a perfect candidate to buy it. And we're like, uh, that'd be an incredible makerspace if we could get our hands on it. So we went through that process, bought it, and went, oh man, we just have 7,000 square feet that now we need to figure out how to fill. And, uh, It actually started out really naturally though. We got some 3D printers and we found this guy in Ohio that puts together laser cutters. Those are kind of, that's kind of the foundational stuff you need for a makerspace, right? And so we got that stuff and then we're like, all right, now we need to figure out how to get people in here and figure out what the heck we're doing with this thing. So we started actually a Wednesday night board game night. And that was incredibly successful. We had, um, on some of our, our more popular nights— this is all pre-COVID, of course— we had about 100 people in here. We had to buy more tables and more chairs, and just, we filled out the entire space, um, with people playing board games. Um, board games has always been a passion of ours at our company. It was something we would do at lunchtime. We played Dominion or, um, or other games that were very strategy-based, um, because it was kind of at the heart of our, our company. We're very opportunist, very strategy-based folks here because that's kind of, that's kind of the industry you have. Um, you know, um, it's a crazy industry of ups and downs across the entire country of, of people building out these fiber networks. And if you're not agile and flexible, um, you're gonna miss out on, on good projects and get stuck with the bad projects. And, and so That's kind of how we have to be. So when we, when we started building this community, um, really what it came down to was a lot of education. So, you know, we were looking at the space and going, oh my goodness, like, how do we get people to actually use the space? How do we get people to actually print stuff and, and cut things with, with our machines? And, um, you know, going from novelty of being able to print Pokémon pieces and some kind of, you know, it's all good and fun, but getting people from novelty to usefulness and more utility, that was sort of the hardest thing to do. But, you know, I would go into the schools and a lot of times there would be a dusty 3D printer in the library that nobody knew how to use. And so I would kind of go in and show them how to do stuff and And, uh, you know, once the light bulb went off in one kid when they realized that they could print, um, a phone case, or they could, they could print, um, a missing piece to their board game, or they could, they could print, um, glasses, or they could, they could fix something that was broken. Oh, I could, I could just print the side of my glass. I could just print a new arm and screw that onto my glasses, and I don't have to go get a new pair of frames that I like. You know, as soon as that light bulb went off that they could actually fix things or build something out of nothing that just didn't exist before, that was really the moment that you're like, ah, got them, you know. And so that's how we started. And, you know, we really grew quite quickly once we started. I can talk a little bit about Makebox. It's a monthly subscription project that we started here where we built these little STEM kits for $20 a month. We're sending them out every month. They were just a little project that actually had real components, you know, it wasn't just popsicle sticks and rubber bands and making catapults and stuff, although that's really cool. We wanted to actually get into the engineering side of things and do much more complex, you know, I mean, not super complex, but, you know, you get breadboards and create little circuits, and, and that has transformed into quarterly projects now that are actually much more complex and have an Internet of Things component to them. Now we've kind of graduated. We used to target kids anywhere between age 7 to 11, as that was kind of the age that we started to see kids falling off and also getting interested in STEM at the same time. So we're trying to get that, and now we've, we've sort of shifted a little bit more towards the 11 to 14 because that pipeline's a little too long if we're trying to engage, you know, third graders. So now we've, we've kind of tightened that down and are engaging the community at a little bit higher, more advanced stage that requires a little bit more background. But it's been really great. One of our— one of our— yeah, go ahead.

What I'm hearing is that, you know, this thing started as a passion project.

Oh yeah.

And one of the things that helped you refine the vision was to, you know, you could have just gone the route of novelty and people could construct their Pokémon pieces, but you've got people going more into projects and making things that actually, you know, that have more significance than that are a step beyond novelty and open up possibility for even, even bigger and better things that they can work on. And so, you know, we're, we're here to unpack this word passion. And I have heard it, I've heard it over and over and over again in conversations with my aunt and uncle about what you all are doing, but in just what you're talking about, what is— how do you define passion and, and how has it become such an integral part of the way that you approach, you know, the thing that you're building there at the Maker Studio?

Yeah, I could go with this a couple different ways, but I think one of the, one of the, um, the ways we've sort of institutionalized passion into Catapult is what we call And Time. And when I started working here, we always said we were an and company, which basically meant we hired you for a purpose. This is your job, but you also bring something else. Here's your job and you do this, right? So when I started, I, you know, I made— I did enough to cover my salary and everything. But what I brought to the company was this experimental side. And, you know, oh, we haven't tried marketing and doing a lot of this rebranding stuff. We don't know what that's about. But if you want to give it a shot, go for it, Isaac. And so that was sort of my 20% that I brought that was all experimental and untouched. And so that was my and project before we started calling them and projects. But that has developed over the years to be more of an institution at the company where if you want to do an AND project, you know, you get— we have this like rolling weekly budget thing and you keep track of it and then you can spend as much time on the project as you want outside of work. And then, you know, if you've done your— if you've done your job for the week, then go to the makerspace, work on your project or wherever your project is. Um, for me, it's, it's kind of floated around. I've done many different ant projects. Um, I have— there's this massive garage that we built on the back of our makerspace here that's kind of the wood shop. And, um, I've constructed a tiny house, um, 5 micro offices, a mobile bathroom, uh, a half-constructed, um, hydroponics, a mobile hydroponics trailer. We really got into trailers. We, you know, mobile is the, uh, is, is the thing.

So you have a theme to your work for sure.

I love it.

Yeah. And hearing about the tiny house is what really piqued my interest. Um, you know, I, I've been to the space and love that, but just this past summer when I was in Dillsburg, and, you know, my, my aunt and uncle's house is across the street, right? Yeah, they were. And I noted the change, and they were like, oh yeah, those catapult guys, uh, uh, bought it so that they could build tiny houses in there. I was like, what? So here's the thing that I'm really curious about, because I, I love that the company is invested in supporting and encouraging the pursuit of people's passion and, and to bring their whole, their integrated whole selves to work. I think that's phenomenal and rare at least in my institutional working experience, which I have not had much of in the last 30 years. But I'm curious as to your, your reflections on— well, just to share a little context, when I was coming up, and I still think that this is a little bit true, you know, we tell our young people, oh, passion is this destination, it's out there, you gotta go find it. Or we tell them, passion is inside you, excavate your passion, and then put it to work. And that all sounds well and good. And for some people, they can quickly identify their passion. I have read studies by very reputable organizations that say that as much as 80% of people, when polled, not identify their purpose and passion. Which to me, I think is horrifying, because you just invited a whole bunch of people into shame.

Yeah.

Well, the thing, because, right, the myth is it's there or there. And if you can't find it, there must be something wrong with you. And so, right, first of all, this process of yours, it feels like you're cultivating passion from the inside out, like you're giving people opportunity. The be passionate. And therefore passion comes.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the interesting thing about, about that, we— years ago, my bosses in our, in one of our annual reviews, they asked me, and they're asking a few of us, I'm sure, what kind of worker are you? Are you somebody that goes to work and when they get home, they want to cash their paycheck and pursue their dreams outside of work? Or are you somebody that wants to pursue your dreams inside of work and kind of build your career, you know, with your 9 to 5 to achieve your dreams? And when they asked me that question, I'm sure I was deer in the headlights. I was like, I have no idea how to answer that question. It took me about a year and I went, oh, well, I didn't realize that Catapult would allow me to do the things that I like to do. I didn't realize that, that we were a company that wanted to push people in those directions. So it was very obvious to me after that. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm all in. I mean, this is, this is what I want to do. So for me personally, I've gotten to do— I've gotten to travel the country being an ambassador as, as a to Catapult and, and all the software we built. I've been able to, um, uh, build a brand and, um, you know, been the face of the company for now almost a decade. And, and, um, now, you know, with the tiny house and all the, the, uh, and project stuff the past 4 years, um, getting to, you know, invest in this makerspace, um, educate kids help them and, and sort of impact our community through the makerspace and the school. But also, you know, the tiny house was a part of an initiative where we want to help with affordable housing. So with that, with that idea, it was, you know, let's try tiny houses, let's see what that looks like. What does it look like to build modular homes? What does it look like to get into construction, land improvement, So we're dabbling in those things. It might not be the right thing, um, but we're gonna try, you know. We're— I think we have— again, we're opportunists. We have to look at all of the different things that are impacting our community. Affordable housing is one of them. Um, you know, we're already involved on the ground floor of fiber broadband and helping our rural broadband communities out. Um, so we're— yeah, we're trying to solve some of those problems that hit our community. And being a little bit of a tech desert here in Dillsburg, we're also trying to solve that with, with the makerspace and, and bringing a lot of that here. So yeah, for us it's been— I think that, and I think that in some ways does describe passion. It's doing stuff that even if it doesn't make sense to be profitable right away or to find, you know, ideally, you know, we're not idiots about things and we go into it going, okay, let's see if we can make a sustainable business out of this and solve the problem. We're not going to go out and raise $10 million to do something. We're going to try and do it all of ourselves and do smart steps, you know, baby steps that are smart and measured, um, but are otherwise risky to any other business. I mean, it wouldn't make sense to many businesses to just go out and start a makerspace. So, but for us, um, we're able to do some of that fuzzy math and make sense of it.

Well, I love that approach. It's, it's at the heart of the way we approach things at Creative On Purpose and, and the Akimbo Workshops, where I also, um, work. And this idea of boot— like there's the entrepreneurial model of raise a bunch of money to build the thing that you want to build. And then there's the bootstrap model, which is find a need, a problem that needs to be solved, and figure out a way to build it from the ground up through a series of small tests and projects and trials, and learn by doing. And, you know, go in with the attitude that this might not work.

Yeah.

That's, to me, one of the things I'm hearing is that, that the company is, is cultivating is something else that is really missing broadly in the culture, which is, you know, we, we are a culture that rewards those that are overconfident about things that they probably should have absolutely no confidence, right? You know, that things that cannot empirically be scientifically proven to be quote unquote true. So we kind of, you know, we were— I mean, we actually end up kind of rewarding hubris as opposed to rewarding things like the curiosity to consider other points of view and the courage to do things that seem impossible, you know. And sure, that's, that's a posture and mindset thing that it seems like you're, you're cultivating, um, over there in Dillsburg as well.

Yeah. Um, one thing that has been really, uh, a guiding light, I guess, for us is— has been to, um, well, somebody years ago when we talked about what books we were reading and who we followed, um, he said, uh, he asked me, you know, who are you reading right now? And I said, oh, uh, I don't even— can't remember who I was reading. But he said, oh, that's great, but have you read this guy? This is the person that they read before they wrote their book. Um, so you should go— you should actually go read the source material. And for for us, that, that has been true here as well. We, um, we've always been a big Patrick Lencioni fan, uh, Seth Godin. I mean, I've, uh, I've been a Seth Godin fan for years, since I was in college, um, and, um, that's led me to guys like Jim Collins and, and others who are, are, uh, taking a lot of that same research that was done in the '80s, '90s, and early aughts and stuff and are applying that to work and culture here in, in the workplace. And, um, recently we kind of, uh, Patrick Lynch— I don't know if you are familiar with Patrick Lynch's work, but the thing that we've been following lately is there, there's, uh, Six Types of Working Genius, um, and we're directly applying that to our 2022 blueprint. Where you, you have a process of working through ideas through their widget: wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity. And I've realized, you know, through taking that, that test that I'm not a tenacious person. I have a lot of galvanizing in me. So we're taking our wonder people and we're having meetings. We're taking our invention people, we're having meetings. We're having our discernment people and having meetings. And, and building this plan. And that allows us to do this really, really tight brainstorming that gets real ideas that are actually good ideas and potentially great ideas to actually go through the system. And it gave us language that we just didn't quite have before. Um, you know, we've done a number of personality tests and all that stuff, but actually giving, kind of creating that system. That's both a personality thing and sort of a methodology of how to think through, okay, where are we in the market? What resources do we have? What do we actually want to accomplish? And we kind of go through with our actual people and the teams that fit those personalities. And, and then that gives everyone skin in the game. I mean, that's— it's a, it's a great opportunity for growth, and we think it's a really smart idea as to how to actually build our future. So for us, you know, passion, I think, is sort of a touchy-feely word sometimes, but the reality is there's a lot of There's a lot of practical things that kind of you can sum up and go, oh, that's passion. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be this, this, you know, moving, hard to conceptualize word. It's more like, oh, passion could actually look like, you know, we ask our guys in an interview, uh, what was the last time you got so involved in your work that you forgot to eat or drink or sleep? You know, that tends to be an indicator of what is— what they're passionate about. So it's the things that we get lost in, it's the things that we just— a lot of times reasoning doesn't apply. So, but for us, we also want to, as a business and to be sustainable, you have to make good decisions and you can't You can't throw reason out the door, but you do want to kind of push reason aside sometimes and say, but what do we really want to accomplish here? How do we actually get a curve jump here? How do we, um, how do we play Moneyball? How do we look different and play by different rules but not break the rules? You know, how do we approach this problem differently than, than the past? You know, yes, they've been trying to, you know, solve this problem for 10 years or 20 years and they haven't fixed it. But how can we fix it? How can we look at it differently? Let's obviously not do the same thing. Let's look at it differently. So that's kind of our thing.

Yeah, I love that. It reminds— you brought up, you know, personality tests. We use the Values and Actions Character Strengths Indicator in our work. And, you know, we work with people that love the Enneagram and Briggs Myers, all that stuff. They're all great. There can also be horoscopes. You can reverse there to make You know, it's kind of like, I want to be this kind of way. And so I'll answer the questions to get the results. But the other thing that is at the heart of what you do, and we'll have to— we're coming close to the end of our time. But I just wanted to highlight this is what I love about what I'm hearing about the way you all approach this is the collaborative nature of it. And I think creativity, curiosity, consideration, collaboration, Connection, communication— these are all things that are so very, very important because working with others, you know, if you can— you just— as something as simple as taking a personality test, like, if you take it by yourself, you'll get one result, but if a trusted friend or advisor gives you the questions, right, you will probably get a very different result. And other people help you see what you can't see. And once you can't— once you see it, you can't unsee it. And right, what we learn so often, I think, is that we are often complicit in putting obstacles in our own way.

Yeah.

Collaboration expedites the creativity process, which probably amplifies the amount of passion that comes, that comes as well. I have so thoroughly loved this conversation, Isaac. I'm wondering if, you know, if there was just one final tip or quote or something like if somebody is listening and says, you know what, this idea of passion is something I should really seek to better understand and bake into the way I approach my creative enterprise, what would be the next step that you would encourage them to take?

Yeah, um, oh my goodness, yeah, right, move to Dillsburg, please. Um, there's not a lot of houses on the market right now, but I will help you find one. Tiny house, that's right, I'll put a tiny house on in my backyard. Um, you know, I think passion has, uh, there is an element of opportunity that has to be involved. Um, a lot of us don't see the opportunity in front of us, and so I think for people that are in, um, in the right spots and are able to show people the opportunity that does exist in front of them, that's a lot of it. You know, especially growing up here in central Pennsylvania, our culture is very DIY, bootstrap,, you know, pretty hardy group of folks that, you know, they don't really believe— there's sort of this undertones of, you know, we don't deserve nice things, or, you know, let's— we're very, you know, we're not flashy, right? And, but I think all you have to do is sort of look at the the bigger picture and you go, oh, we have plenty of opportunity here. We have the resources, we have the— we have all the tools, we have everything in place. We just need to execute and connect the dots. And I mean, that's, that's all I do. I'm literally a connector and it's just, oh, I talked with you and I talked with you. You guys should get together. And then all of a sudden there's this, you know, for lack of a better word, there's that synergy that brings them together and creates that awesome thing. So it's, I think, showing people opportunity and giving them space to fail and to, to, you know, mess things up. That's, that's a lot of it.

So that's fantastic. I love everything you've shared, but I just want to amplify, you know, you can spend your whole life collecting dots, but if you don't ever learn to connect the dots, that absolutely will not have any utility whatsoever. So be a Be both.

That's right, both and.

Both and, exactly. I love it. Thank you so much, Isaac. And thanks everyone for tuning in. Isaac and I really appreciate you lending us some of your valuable time and attention. We hope that today's broadcast motivates you to lean into an endeavor that matters with a little bit more curiosity and courage. You can learn more about Isaac and the rest of the crew at Catapult Engineering at catapultengineering.com. That's Catapult with a K. And of course, it's always great to see you at creativeonpurpose.com. Now Take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and fly higher in the difference only you can make. Isaac Tucker, thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom with us today.

Thanks for having me.